set sb up

[often passive] (DECEIVE) informal — phrasal verb with set

/set/ verb (present tense setting, past tense and past participle set)

Definition

› to trick someone in order to make them do something, or in order to make them seem guilty of something that they have not done: They claimed that they weren't selling drugs, but that they'd been set up by the police.Cheating and trickingPlotting and trapping

(Definition of set sb up (DECEIVE) from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

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